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Design Talk - Event Crawling

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Recently, I sat down and took some time to think about a game structure I’d like to use for a certain moment in my campaign. The moment in question was a “vacation event,” simulating those lighthearted episodes common in anime and similar productions, where the main characters have a series of casual interactions with each other and the supporting cast, usually in a relaxing setting like beaches, hot springs… and so on.

Up until then, I had already experimented a bit with different exploration structures in this campaign. Hex Crawls, Point Crawls, even Sector Crawls, as described in this post on The Alexandrian. I started thinking about how I could, considering that the characters would be occupying the same environment (the map of some super fantastic thermal baths) for the next few sessions, liven up the social interactions and roleplay moments between them and the gigantic cast of NPCs that I painfully bear the responsibility of playing. If I let the players “roam free” on the map, I imagine they’d eventually find something to do, but after a day or two (in-game) of that, it would get tiresome, and the whole point of the vacation would go down the drain.

Then I remembered a feature used in video games for this kind of situation: events. Little glowing dots on your screen that say, “Hey, something’s going on here! Click me!”. For example, I think of how quests work in Rockstar's games (like GTA and Red Dead Redemption), where each one displays, right from the start, the initial of the character it’s related to. This already leads the player to imagine what it’s about, based on their prior knowledge of that character. Another example is how events work in some Visual Novel games, where the map the protagonist navigates has icons indicating possible interactions with the game’s cast of characters. I also recalled a certain moment in Genshin Impact, where during a war, the player must look at a series of conflicts arranged as icons on a map and decide which one to intervene in (leaving the other behind). Oh, Dispatch—I almost forgot. The 2025 game Dispatch also has one of the central aspects of its gameplay focused on these “clickable” events where the player receives advance information about what might end up happening there.

That’s when I realized that this could, in theory, work for tabletop RPGs—especially those played digitally on platforms like FoundryVTT, Fantasy Grounds, or Roll20.

So I put it into practice at my own table, and I’m trying to lay it all out in this post.

Event Crawling

Event Crawling is a game structure designed for exploring multiple events (such as battles, social interactions, and exploration, among others) within a predetermined geographical space: a battlefield, a city, a birthday party...
An event crawl works well to illustrate various types of situations, but here are a few examples:

The Event

An event is, quite simply, a marker on the map (digital or physical) that indicates something is happening there. It may indicate the type of situation to expect, or the character involved. Any number of events may exist at a given moment during the event crawl, and the characters’ interaction with a particular event may affect the other events they haven’t interacted with. Within the event, the GM should have something prepared that would work using the normal means of resolving that situation: some social interaction, conflict, or combat to be played out there, through the event.

Beyond that, there is no limit to the size of an event. An event can be a simple conversation with an NPC, a chase, or even the exploration of an entire dungeon (in this case, a dungeon crawl as an event within the event crawl). It all depends, in the end, on the anticipated scale of the event crawl.

Example: Imagine that a large port city is hosting a festival, and a series of events takes place each day of the festival. On the first day, the events are: (1) Fishing Event, (2) Alley Brawl, and (3) NPC Interaction, represented respectively by tokens of a fish, a clenched fist, and an open mouth.

  1. The characters involved must compete to catch the biggest fish, winning prizes.
  2. The characters get caught up in a fight between two rival groups.
  3. An NPC previously introduced during the campaign has something to say (which can be used to develop the plot, or simply make the NPC more liked or disliked by the group).

Once all the events in that time frame have been defined and briefly described by the GM, the players choose the events they would like their characters to participate in.

Note

It is important that players have SOME idea of what the event is about before deciding to interact with it. In these mechanics, a slight separation between the player and the character may occur. Even if the character does not know that a certain NPC will be in a location during the night, the player may decide to go there to find them, resulting in both characters meeting by “coincidence.” The GM could describe the events above during the setup phase, for example, as follows: (1) There is a fishing competition at the harbor, (2) Something dangerous is happening in the alley at night, and (3) Benson (the NPC) is doing something at the tavern.

Limits

It is necessary to determine how much time passes when performing one or more events, as well as how many “events” a character can perform per day or time period. Consider that extended vacation I mentioned at the beginning: I divided the 24-hour period into day and night. During the day, a number of events appeared for the characters, and the players selected which ones they would like to participate in. Some participated in the same event together, others participated in an event alone. Once each character had participated in an event, I advanced the time to night, leaving behind any uninteracted events, and presenting a new list of events. In this way, an event crawl can be divided into rounds, within which each character can interact with one or more events (as determined by the GM), and then the round ends, advancing time and revealing new events. It is possible that the players’ lack of interaction with a certain event will result in something in the future, just as their interaction with the events they actually participated.

This way, time passes more smoothly during the long periods when seasonal festivals, wars, or other similar events take place, without players having to scramble to find something to do.

Other Considerations

As rigid as this structure may be, it’s important to remember that anything can happen in an RPG. Be sure to consider how the outcomes of past events might affect future situations. If none of the events scheduled for that day are interesting to the players, let them be free to explore, create their own situations, or even roll for another “surprise” event (remembering to have random tables on hand for this). Consider the possibility of fixed events, which happen regardless of the characters’ actions—and which can certainly be affected by previous events. Consider a variation of random encounter tables that determine random events that can occur when a character enters or exits an event (just as a character enters and exits a hex in a hex crawl).

Running an Event Crawl

Finally, here is a brief step-by-step guide on how to run this type of structure:

  1. Select or describe the geographical space where the event crawl will take place: a nightclub, an island, a city, etc. If possible, show this map to the players;
  2. Determine how long the event crawl will last and how many rounds it will span. Example: one week, with daily events;
  3. Prepare the events. Don’t write more than a short paragraph for each one; improvise the rest. Also prepare or select inspiration tables for random events;
  4. List the events for the round to the players, and their position on the map; let them choose;
  5. Resolve each of the chosen events;
  6. Advance the time;
  7. Repeat from step 4 until you reach the end of what is prepared.

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